


Bros

by CrazyJ



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Angst, Dallas Stars, F/M, M/M, Mentions of F/M sex, Mixed Messages, Pining, Revellations, Swearing, Unrequited Love, happy endings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-14 00:13:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7144241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrazyJ/pseuds/CrazyJ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jamie having a girlfriend was great. It meant he was happy and of course Tyler would want his best friend to be happy, even though said best friend had apparently not thought to ask Tyler what he thought about the relationship or even thought to introduce him to her before they started dating. They could still be bros though. Bros after hoes kind of thing. Bros when they have time kind of bros. Bros who only text each other every few weeks and don’t call each anymore kind of bros. You know…occasional bros.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bros

**Author's Note:**

> So this was supposed to be a little 2,000 word ficlet on Tyler and Jamie getting together and not this mass of angst that somehow ended up on my computer screen almost 10,000 words later. This was not planned, but it happened and therefore I must roll with it.
> 
> This story mentions real life partners. If you are uncomfortable with this or happen to be one of said real life partners, please turn back now. I have nothing against either woman and hope they make Jamie and Tyler very happy, but for the sake of this story I needed them gone and that is all I will say for now.
> 
> The beginning part of this story was inspired by [this](https://twitter.com/tseguinofficial/status/740370856845529089) photo posted by Tyler last night when I started writing this. Enjoy x

Tyler would be the first person to admit that he didn’t always handle uncomfortable situations in the best way. 

Which is why, when Jamie got a girlfriend named Katie at the beginning of last season, Tyler felt like his world had been turned upside down.

It’s not that he was mad per se that Jamie had gotten a girlfriend. It was just, Jamie was his best friend and best friends were meant for hanging out with before and after games and on road trips, lazing by the pool on off days, getting blindly, stupidly drunk with during a losing streak and having a girlfriend meant interrupted bro time. But really, he was fine with it if he closed his eyes and didn’t think too hard about it. Jamie having a girlfriend was great. It meant he was happy and of course Tyler would want his best friend to be happy, even though said best friend had apparently not thought to ask Tyler what he thought about the relationship or even thought to introduce him to her before they started dating. They could still be bros though. Bros after hoes kind of thing. Bros when they have time kind of bros. Bros who only text each other every few weeks and don’t call each anymore kind of bros. You know…occasional bros.

The worst part about it though, was that Tyler actually _liked_ Katie. She was downright stunning, hilarious to be around, super witty and cute as a button. Whenever she giggled, everyone around her would instantly smile and when she threw her arms around you to give you a hug, all was suddenly right in the world. She was perfect for Jamie and it sickened him.

So if he accidentally spilled beer down her back one time while they were out at a party, well, no one had to be the wiser.

This, in a roundabout way, was consequently how Tyler ended up here, sitting in a boat in the middle of a lake, freezing his ass off while glaring at his friend Brett who had convinced him that fishing of all things was what they wanted to do with their Tuesday.

“So remind me again, why you thought fishing was the best course of action?” Tyler asked sarcastically, feeling the end of his line dip unceremoniously into the water, positioning himself to start reeling it in and sort of hoping there would be no fish actually attached to the line so he didn’t have to touch it, as manly as he supposed he was.

“Fishing is calming and you’ve been a moping asshole for weeks,” Brett responded casually, reaching into the water just as Tyler’s line breached the surface, expertly grabbing the unfortunate fish and unhooking its jaw, letting out a soft whistle at the size of the apparently impressive specimen as he dropped it on the floor of the boat between them. “Good catch bro.”

“First off, **bro** ,” Tyler started, eyeing the still-flopping fish uneasily, “I have not been moping. And secondly, how on earth is fishing supposed to be calming? You literally sit here and wait for some stupid ass fish to commit suicide on your line and then pull it up. That’s it. That’s literally all you do when you fish.”

“So are you complaining because you are bored or because fishing is giving you too much time to think and you don’t like where your thoughts are going to?” Brett asked after only a brief pause in which he threaded Tyler’s line with bait and tossed it back into the water, ignoring the overt slight against his favourite hobby. “Or are you complaining specifically because you are thinking about your lover boy and wondering when he’ll text you next?”

“I have no idea what you are referring to,” Tyler said petulantly, hunching down in his sweater against a cool breeze and reaching down onto the floor of the boat to grab the fish, whipping out his phone and snapping a picture of himself looking rather uncomfortable holding the now-dead fish. A few snaps later and Tyler resigned himself to looking mildly petrified, dropping the fish back onto the floor of the boat and wiping his hand on Brett’s shirt despite his protests, loading the photo onto his Twitter before he could think too deeply about Brett’s words. He wasn’t moping. He was a grown ass man and men didn’t mope. They sulked, huge difference.

“What are you doing?” Brett asked after a moment of silence. “Sending a picture of your mighty fish to my favourite Canadian boy?”

“I thought I was your favourite Canadian boy?” Tyler responded indignantly, cancelling the photo upload of the picture he had perhaps been thinking of sending to Jamie and locking his phone, meeting the gaze of Brett who was grinning knowingly, the little shit head.

“Only when you admit that you are moping.”

“I am not moping!” Tyler said angrily, throwing his hands up into the air and rocking the boat more than he had originally intended to, grabbing the sides for support and looking longingly at the hard, solid land that was behind them before he continued. “Jamie can do whatever the fuck he wants in the summer, I am sure he and Katie are having a great time right now while I am stuck in this stupid rickety boat with you when I would literally rather be anywhere else in the world.”

“Now, now,” Brett chided the same knowing look still present on his face. “Are you sure you aren’t jealous that Jamie has been too busy spending time with Katie to actually respond to your fifty-thousand messages?”

“I haven’t sent fifty-thousand,” Tyler muttered under his breath, opening his phone once more and pulling up the “conversation” between him and his favourite Benn, noting the eleven messages that he had sent that had gone without a reply over the last several days. “And what do I have to be jealous of? Did you forget that I have a girlfriend too?”

“Did you?” Brett asked far too casually for Tyler’s liking. “And when did you two become boyfriend/girlfriend then? Last I checked you hadn’t even slept with her yet?”

“We’re taking it slow,” Tyler said with a huff, though that wasn’t entirely the truth if the blowjob he had received last night was any indication, as hurried as it might have been. “I’ve been spending almost all of my free time with her lately, it’s been fun, her and her friends are super-hot and we have a good time when we hang out. Why do I need to put a label on it?”

“You don’t, but you might want to ask yourself why you have a banging-hot chick in your life that apparently likes you for more than just your hot abs and good money and actually wants to spend time with you and your friends and you for some reason haven’t locked that down.”

“When have I ever been a one-person kind of guy?” Tyler said as faux-confidently as he could manage, leaning back against the edge of the boat and closing his eyes, trying to push out the thoughts swirling around in his head and ignoring the implied question. “Being single gives me options if I get bored, you know how it is man.”

“I do, but I have a feeling it might have more to do with the fact that she is Katie’s friend than anything else.”

Tyler sighed, opening his eyes briefly and watching as a bird circled high above his head, dipping down outside of his view as he pondered how to respond to his friend. He knew that Brett was right and Brett knew that Brett was right, but it pissed him off to no end that Katie had suggested Tyler get out more while he was recuperating with his injured calf and then had the audacity to actually set him up with someone as wonderful as Ali.

The thing was - Ali was actually, legitimately pretty great. She wasn’t the smartest bulb in the box, but she was gorgeous, with long tanned legs and beautiful blue eyes, a perfect smile and an infectious personality. She loved drinking which was something Tyler could always get behind and she could do six shots of vodka in a row and not even be fazed. So it wasn’t that Tyler didn’t like her, because the way she threw herself at him was not something he was likely ever going to complain about, it was just…she reminded him of Katie and Katie reminded him of Jamie and Jamie was apparently too busy to talk to his supposed “best friend” and was the last person Tyler wanted to be reminded of while he sat six thousand kilometres away in an old boat in the middle of the lake with Jamie nowhere to be found. That’s all.

“Ali is great,” Tyler started, choosing his words carefully as he continued. “But she’s not the kind of person I’d want to bring home to my mother. She’s cute and quirky and fun, but she’s out to have a good time, not put up with someone like me who travels the country, is never home for long periods of time and has an affinity to flirt with anything that moves. To be fair, I’m not the kind of guy she wants to bring home to her mother either, but it would never work. I wouldn’t want it to work…”

“So what do you want?” Brett asked thoughtfully after a few moments of silence had passed between them, the boat rocking gently in the Ontarian water.

“I wish I knew man, I wish I knew.”

***

Tyler was bored and not just the stare at your ceiling kind of bored, but the feel-it-in-your-toes kind of bored the bored where literally even the notion of being bored was boring. It’s not that Tyler was going stir crazy, it’s just his phone had been oddly silent over the last few days, only getting a few hundred texts from friends and family, coaches, business partners, agents, the like and none from the one person he was really hoping would respond to the now *fourteen* messages he had sent over the last eleven days. 

Tyler dialed the number he knew by heart without giving it too much extra thought, flopping down on his bed as the familiar “hello?” rang through the receiver.

“Jordie!” Tyler crowed happily, or at least he hoped it sounded happy as Jordie laughed from the other end of the line. “How are you man?”

“Tyler, what do I owe the displeasure?”

“Rude,” Tyler said with a small huff, grinning despite himself. “Can’t a guy just call his favourite Benn when he feels like it?”

“I think we both know that I am not even remotely close to being your favourite Benn since you and my adorably awkward younger brother are so far up each other’s asses I’m surprised you haven’t already become one.”

“Excuse you, we are not up each other’s asses,” Tyler said with a much larger huff, ignoring the pang in his chest. “And if he’d answer his bloody fucking phone then I wouldn’t have to bother my third favourite Benn in the middle of the fucking summer.”

“Oh joy, so you did call to complain about my stupid younger brother, lucky me,” Jordie said with a sigh, resigning himself to the conversation and preparing for how whiny he knew Tyler was going to get. 

“It’s not like he’d answer you anyways,” Jordie added as an afterthought, thinking back to the early morning wakeup he had rudely received eleven days earlier when his brother had barged into his room at four in the morning, demanding he drive him and Katie to the airport.

“And why the fuck not?” Tyler said crossly through the line, his hackles rising despite himself.

“Because our favourite captain and his lover took off to Paris for two weeks out of nowhere because they wanted to ‘see the world’ while they are young and the ‘time is now’ or some shit.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me?” Tyler burst out suddenly, sitting up in bed and staring angrily at the poster hanging on the back of his door across the room as if his mere gaze would make it combust and burst into flames.

“I shit you not, my friend. Didn’t even have the decency to tell Mom and Dad about it, just demanded I take them to the airport at an ungodly hour and then asking me after they had gotten out of the car if I could tell our parents they’d be back soon. Shit head.”

“Of course he did and I guess that explains why he hasn’t had the decency to answer any of my texts since he’s probably too stupid to figure out how to buy international minutes overseas,” Tyler said with enough anger in his voice to know that Jordie was going to be able to read him like an open book whether he wanted him to or not. “And when is the asshole supposed to be getting back?”

“Theoretically? Tomorrow,” Jordie said, pulling his phone away and briefly turning the call to speaker so he could check his email for the flight details Jamie had surprisingly sent him before he left. “But I wouldn’t put it past him to miss the flight or lose his passport. As much as I love my little brother, he’s sort of a lost cause when it comes to anything but hockey.”

“Yeah, well. Tell him I’m busy if he asks about me when he gets back,” Tyler said angrily, feeling the tense line of his shoulders and deciding he needed to go for a run immediately if he didn’t plan on crawling out of his skin. “Not that he will ask since he apparently has forgotten I exist and or matter, but you know, let bygones be bygones or some shit.”

“Ty…” Jordie said exasperatedly, closing his eyes and rubbing the space between his eyebrows where he could feel the beginning of a headache coming on. “You know he cares about you. He just gets lost in la la land sometimes and forgets that there is a world around him. He does the same with hockey. He’ll call you when he’s home, I know he will.”

“Yeah, well, I’m getting pretty sick of being second to everyone else in his life when he’s always been first in mine,” Tyler said after a moment, standing up and staring resolutely at the window. “I’m not going to wait around forever.”

“I know, Ty, he’ll figure that out eventually,” Jordie responded knowingly, feeling a wave of sadness wash over him at the truth behind his friend’s words. “He’ll come around.”

“You know what Jordie? I’m not sure I actually believe that anymore.”

***

Tyler was drunk; absolutely, fantastically, spectacularly drunk.

The thrum of the music pumped alongside the alcohol in his veins as Tyler gyrated his hips against the back of Ali’s body, her friend Mary plastered to his sweaty back, his shirt having been lost some hours ago just after he had originally called Ali and told her they were going out.

The dance floor was packed with hundreds of people in similar stages of undress, all pressed tightly together as they moved their hips to the same shitty music. Ali turned her head to peer at Tyler over her shoulder and feeling emboldened, Tyler leaned forward and caught her lips in a deep kiss. It wasn’t their first kiss by any means, the two had most definitely fooled around a couple of times, but it was the first kiss fueled solely by intent, as Tyler pulled her hips back against his crotch to show her how hard she was making him with her silky dance moves.

Ali turned to face him and stepped into Tyler’s space, pulling him down into a filthy kiss that tasted like vodka and beer and something else that Tyler couldn’t identify with the noise going on in his head. Using his body to maneuver her closer, he dropped one hand to the swell of her ass, squeezing gently and feeling his dick harden further when she moaned into his mouth.

“You okay down there, big boy?” Ali asked with a mischievous glint in her eye, pulling away briefly to run her hands down Tyler’s chest and across his abs, ghosting her fingers across his bulge for the briefest of brief seconds before looping both arms around his neck and kissing her way across his jaw.

“You don’t seem to mind,” Tyler replied a little breathlessly, angling his neck so Ali could reach it better as she continued to kiss her way down his neck and across his collarbone. 

“I can’t say that I do,” Ali responded a moment later, capturing his lips in a kiss once more. “How about we go somewhere where there is less people and where you have less  
clothes on?”

Tyler groaned audibly, turning towards where he thought the door to the exit was and grabbing Ali’s hand behind his back, distantly registering that her friend Mary was nowhere to be found and that he should maybe ask Ali to call her to make sure she got home okay.

Minutes later, the two spilled into the street, giggling as they clutched each other as they tried to stand up straight, Tyler hailing a cab though he could barely see clearly enough to see if the blur of yellow coming towards them was empty or occupied. Leaning down to kiss Ali once more Tyler jumped when someone called out behind him asking him if he intended on getting a ride, forcing him to disengage from the brunette beauty and usher her into the cab, needing to focus to give the driver his address, the elder man glaring gruffly at the duo through the rearview mirror as he pulled away from the curb.

Turning back to kiss Ali, Tyler let himself explore the curves of her body more than he had in the dark expanse of the club, running his hands down her bare side where the cropped top didn’t reach, feeling the goose bumps erupt across her skin from the gentle touch. Moments later, what could have been five minutes or fifty as Tyler had lost track of time, the cab slowed to a halt and Tyler pulled away from Ali’s lips to look up at his parent’s place, pulling his wallet clumsily from the back pocket and pulling out a hundred dollar bill, passing it to the driver who looked awfully smug despite himself before Tyler managed to disentangle himself from where the two perched in the tight backseat and opened the door, Ali falling out behind him a few seconds later in a tumble of limbs and swear words.

“Shh, don’t be so loud, you’ll wake up the entire block!” Tyler chided the woman, though he was pretty sure he was being the louder of the two. “Come on, let’s get inside.”

“I can’t believe we are going to have sex in your childhood bedroom,” Ali whispered minutes later with a giggle after they had “successfully” entered the house, only knocking over one painting on the wall and tripping over one pair of shoes in the foyer that most likely belonged to Tyler himself. Once they were through the first bit of the house, Tyler led Ali to the back of the house to his room, which thankfully was on the same floor as they currently were as he wasn’t sure if he was capable of doing stairs right at this moment. 

Pulling Ali into the room, Tyler closed the door tightly, turning the lock and feeling mildly guilty despite the insane amount of alcohol he had put into his body after his conversation with Jordie earlier that afternoon. 

Taking his phone from his pocket, Tyler had the basic sense to at least throw it on to the top of the headboard before he was pulling his pants and socks off, Ali matching his movements as the two stripped frenziedly, not breaking contact all the while. When they finally stepped towards each other in nothing but their undergarments, Tyler was back to  
full mast and ready to explode, ignoring the loud vibrating that was coming from the top of his headboard.

Pushing Ali down onto the bed, Tyler looked into her warm blue eyes clouded with drink, smiling at her enticingly and swallowing around the blockage in his throat, leaning down to kiss her instead of wondering what the hell he was doing with her in his bed when it was the last thing he actually wanted.

Stripping her down the rest of the way, Tyler barely noticed the repeated vibrations coming from his phone every few seconds as he received a slurry of texts in a row, instead using his fingers and tongue to prep the hot older woman, pushing into her finally in a moment of heat and passion, thrusting against her and ignoring the high pitched moans coming out of her mouth, eye catching on a photo of he and Jamie tacked to the wall behind his headboard, the two with their arms around each other at the beginning of training camp last season. 

Squeezing his eyes shut, Tyler thrust in harder, picking up the pace and willing himself to push down the emotion that had come with seeing that photo. A loud gasp from the woman underneath him had sparks shooting up his spine and as he opened his eyes and made eye contact with the photo once more, he came with a shout and what may have been the mix of Jamie’s name on his lips, body dropping down to cover Ali’s, both panting into each other’s space as the reality of what had just happened settled into his bones.

Ah, fuck.

***

Tyler woke with a splitting headache and an empty bed, his stomach rolling as he shifted and attempted to roll over, the room spinning with the force of a hurricane as Tyler tried to steady himself for what he imagined was going to be the hangover of all hangovers. 

Sitting up, Tyler noted a glass of water and two pills beside his bed with a note reading “We’ll talk later” tacked beside it. Groaning at the reality of the situation, Tyler swallowed the pills dry before guzzling the water and dropping his head back onto the pillow, throwing one arm over his eyes to block out the incessant light streaming in from the window from where he had forgotten to shut his curtains.

Reaching blindly above his head some time later, Tyler finally managed to get his phone into his hand, pulling it down and grimacing when the light from the phone drove straight into his temples as he hit the home button, the light still on full-blast from when he had turned it up in the club.

Swiping his thumb up to pull-up the options menu, Tyler turned down the brightness to a level he deemed suitable before shutting out the menu and carefully flicking through the notifications, noting that he had well over 100 despite the fact he had only been asleep for…shit, twelve hours. 

Typing in the code into his phone instead of trying to get his fingerprint to work, Tyler carefully opened his text messages, seeing Ali’s name and text only two from the top. Opening it wordlessly, Tyler’s eyes roamed the message, feeling his heart plummet at the words on the screen, the, _“Left this morning. Didn’t want to wake you. Don’t call_.” feeling like a punch in the gut to go along with the screaming noise in his head that was still threatening to make him physically ill.

Backing out of the text, Tyler scanned the rest of the messages, ignoring the fact that his mom and sisters names were all at the top of his notification list before suddenly realizing there was a blue dot beside Jamie’s name which meant that the older man had finally broken his radio silence and remembered that Tyler existed. With shaking hands, Tyler slowly fumbled open the conversation thread to find six messages staring cruelly back up at him.

_Benners 12:04 AM: Dude, Tyler, how the fuck have you been man?!!_

_Benners 12:04 AM: Sorry for not contacting you earlier, been a weird two weeks_

_Benners 12:05 AM: I was going to wait till the morning, but Jordie said something about really needing to talk to you when he picked me up_

_Benners 12:05 AM: You okay dude?_

_Benners 12:06 AM: Tried calling you, bet you were too busy hooking up with Ali though to answer you sly dog ;)_

_Benners 12:06 AM: Anyways, fucking missed you man, call me back <3 <3 <3_

Not fucking likely, Benn. Not fucking likely.

***

Tyler lay in bed for what felt like an eternity longer until his phone buzzed in his hand showing an incoming call from one Mr. Jamie Benn. Choosing to drop the phone on his bed and ignore his problems instead of answering, Tyler stood up slowly, gingerly making his way out of his room to the kitchen where he distantly heard the sound of commotion.

Entering the room, Tyler found himself face-to-face with his mother and two sisters, all who had the audacity to raise their brows at him simultaneously, giving him possibly the most judgmental looks that three women could manage as Tyler pulled a face, looking between the three of them before groaning and dropping into one of the chairs at the island.

“Alright, let’s hear it,” Tyler mumbled into the crook of his am, feeling his mother brush the back of his head gently as she walked by, a glass of water appearing before him a moment later as his sisters called out rude profanities in his general direction as they walked out of the room.

“Tyler Paul Seguin, what on earth were you thinking bringing a girl here while you were completely and irresponsibly inebriated? Do you know how many people probably saw you acting the fool while you stumbled around in that dirty old club? Since when do you act like this anymore, I thought we had gotten past your party days?”

“It’s too early to use the word inebriated, Ma,” Tyler said with another groan, propping his head up on one hand and looking desolately at his mother.

“It is 2:30 in the afternoon on a Wednesday, Tyler, don’t you start with me young man. What were you thinking, you’ve worked so hard to clean up your image and that’s not even taking into consideration the painting you ruined when you stomped in here like a herd of elephants with no consideration for those of us who were sleeping.”

“I…I just wanted to forgot about the world for a few hours, mom. I just wanted to not be Tyler Seguin for a little bit and just drink and have fun, is that so bad?”

“Of course it’s not, sweetie, but you have to remember that you have a responsibility to your fans and to the organization you represent. A picture of you and that girl stumbling out of the club is all over the internet this morning. The only saving grace is the reports all say you were being a true gentlemen, even if you were loading yourself with enough alcohol to kill a man.”

“Awe, fuck,” Tyler moaned, looking cautiously at the laptop that was sitting a few feet away at the end of the island, knowing he needed to look to see how bad it was. “Jenn is going to kill me.”

“And rightfully so. Now, do you want to tell me what’s really going on?” Jackie asked, her voice softening considerably as she started to bustle around the kitchen, pulling out the ingredients for a grilled cheese and refilling Tyler’s glass. “No one gets drunk because they are a famous hockey player with a good life. Spill.”

“I used to get drunk because I was a good hockey player all the time,” Tyler retorted, though he’d admit afterwards it wasn’t his best comeback.

“And how’s that going for you?”

“Not as bad as I thought,” Tyler said with a forced laugh, the familiar pang in his chest as he was reminded of Boston significantly less than it had been when he had first gotten traded. “I love Dallas, it’s my home and I love the organization and the fans and the guys in the room. But I get your point.”

“Is Jamie not included in that?” Jackie asked after a slight pause, turning to make eye contact with her son who stared back at her with wide eyes, looking very much like a deer caught in headlights.

“Sorry?” Tyler asked with a squeak just as Jackie pushed a plate of grilled cheese towards him, the smell causing his stomach to rumble loudly in the quiet room.

“You always say that your favourite thing about going to Dallas was getting to meet Jamie, but you haven’t mentioned him once in the last few weeks and you didn’t mention him then when usually he’d be the first person you’d talk about. Are you two fighting dear?”

“We’re not fighting,” Tyler mumbled, taking a ferocious bite of his sandwich. “He’s too dumb to even notice that I am mad at him, so it’s not much of a fight.”

“Come on, love, don’t start calling him names now, he’s your best friend.”

“Is he? Doesn’t seem to act that way since I haven’t fucking heard from him in over two weeks and he barely said a word in the weeks before that, too busy off fucking his girlfriend. Did you know he and Katie went to Paris? Paris!” Tyler shouted, taking another bite of his sandwich as he spoke, his mom grimacing as he ranted with his mouth full.

“He’s always going on about how we’re ‘best friends’ and we’d ‘do anything for each other,’ but don’t you think you’d at least mention that you were taking off to another continent or you know, answer some of my text messages and see how I’m doing when I say I need to talk, not respond when it’s convenient for him? And now he’s texting and calling non-stop trying to get ahold of me and I don’t really want to talk to him and ugh.”

Dropping his head back into his hands, Tyler massaged the side of his temples, already knowing the look that was on his mom’s face from where she stood across the kitchen.

“Oh honey, you need to tell him how you feel.”

“I’m not gay, mom” Tyler replied slowly, hearing the sadness and pity in her voice and hating her for it just the tiniest bit.

“You’re certainly not straight either,” Jackie retorted knowingly, turning back to start washing the pan as the two sat in silence for a few long minutes.

“Sorry about that,” Tyler finally said after the silence had gotten too uncomfortable for him to bear, grimacing at the reminder of the picture he had accidentally sent his mom of a tryst he had, had on the road with a dashing young man who’s name Tyler honestly couldn’t remember, not that the two had ever talked about said photo before. “Not my best moment.”

“Not all that surprising either, sweetie. You’ve always been known to flirt with anything that moves and you know that your father and I don’t care who you are with as long as you are safe and happy, man or woman. But you really do need to speak with Jamie, you’ve been moping for weeks and you being sad can’t end up like last night again. You are lucky the photo was relatively tame.”

“What am I supposed to do, Mom?” Tyler asked after a moment, looking at his mother helplessly. “What exactly am I supposed to say? Yeah, hi Jamie, so you are my best friend and I’m kind of really fucking pissed at you for forgetting about me all summer while you were off gallivanting with your girlfriend who I sort of kind of hate for taking you away from me and oh, yeah, I’d actually probably be okay if you two broke up and you realized you cared more about me than her and I kind of want to make you smile that stupid smile for the rest of our lives, but instead I’m hungover in my mom’s kitchen wishing you were here.”

“Well, you could start with hello,” Jackie said with a smile, her grin widening at the disbelieving laugh that escaped her son’s lips as she wrapped her arms around him, feeling his hands wrap around her waist and hold her. “See how things go.”

“I just want him to want me,” Tyler said softly, hating how pathetic he sounded. “I just want to not feel like this anymore.”

“I know sweetie. How about you go shower and give Jenn a call and while you are at it, maybe you text Jamie back and tell him you are busy. See what he says?”

“I thought you said I should talk to him?”

“Yes, but he hurt my baby and I don’t like that, so he should have to work for your attention if he wants to see you again. Tell him you’ve been busy, make him go wild, see what happens.”

“You kind of scare me sometimes, Mom,” Tyler said with a laugh, sitting up and making a face at his mother who smiled ruefully in return. 

“Good.”

***

A few hours later after showering, calling Jenn and sending out a tweet to cover his ass, Tyler found himself back in his bed, staring down at the phone where he had three missed calls from Jamie and several more texts.

He couldn’t quite say he understood why Jamie had switched from almost complete radio silence over the last few weeks to this barrage of messaging that was overwhelming his phone, but it was the last message he’d received staring up at him that had Tyler seeing red.

_Benners 4:06 PM: Tyler, where the fuck are you dude?? You too busy for your best friend?_

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Tyler muttered under his breath, typing the same thing and hitting send before he could take it back.

The reply came instantly and it did nothing to tamp down the anger that Tyler was feeling, or the betrayal he felt at his “best” friend’s words, who really was too stupid to realize what was going on.

_Benners 5:13 PM: Kidding you about what? You haven’t been responding!_

_Tyler 5:14 PM: That’s fucking rich coming from you Jamie, since you’ve apparently forgotten I exist over the last month and a half_

_Benners5:16 PM: What are you talking about? I haven’t forgotten you!_

_Tyler 5:17 PM: Really? Is that what you call talking every single day for months and months and months and then suddenly summer is here and I don’t exist?_

_Tyler 5:18 PM: You always go on about how we are “best friends,” but how many times did I text saying I needed to talk and you never responded?_

_Tyler 5:18 PM: How many times did I call and leave a voicemail and you never called back?_

_Tyler 5:19 PM: Stop fucking typing, I’m not done_

_Tyler 5:21 PM: Ever since summer started it’s as if you don’t have time for me anymore. I thought we were best friends, but best friends aren’t just friends when it’s convenient and during the season. I was going to ask you to come out for a bit, take you to some of my favourite places in Toronto before World’s, you know, show you around like friend’s do or maybe come surprise you for your birthday in July. But ever since fucking Katie showed up you have a one track mind and you seem to forget everyone else around you but her._

_Benners 5:24 PM: What the fuck does Katie have to do with this?_

_Tyler 5:25 PM: Everything. Fucking everything that’s gone wrong in my life started after she showed up, but you never even noticed since your head has been so far up your ass._

_Tyler 5:26 PM: Do me a favour, yeah Jamie? Fuck off._

_Benners 5:27 PM: Are you actually fucking mad at me right now over nothing?_

_Tyler: 5:28 PM: What gave that away Jamie, the fuck or the off? And it’s not nothing, it matters to me. Not that you would notice._

_Benners 5:30 PM: You are actually being a child right now Tyler. Grow the fuck up and talk to me when you’ve got your big boy pants on._

_Tyler 5:31 PM: Yeah well, not your problem anymore is it Jamie Bear? Have fun with Katie this summer, see you at World’s._

And with that, Tyler chucked his phone across his room, irrationally angry and on the verge of his heart splitting into two in his chest, the heaving of his chest sounding surprisingly like deep-racking sobs in the silence.

***

“So what you are telling me,” Tyler’s sister Cassidy started, “is that Mom told you to tell Jamie you were too busy to talk and try and woo him over to you and instead you told him to fuck off and never talk to you again?”

“I didn’t say never,” Tyler mumbled from where he had his head in his sister’s lap, her hands carding softly through his hair. “I’d like to point out he’s my captain, I can’t exactly avoid him forever.”

“You’re being an idiot, Ty,” Cassidy said softly. “When did you even figure out that you liked him?”

“I don’t know if I ever didn’t like him,” Tyler responded wistfully. “He’s always just been there for me, been this constant presence in my life. It’s not like he’s bad looking or anything and the way he talks about hockey, the passion, it’s something I get you know? He’s my best friend and it feels like I’ve spent the last two years making sure he was always happy and he always made me happy and there were no distractions and nothing to take away from it and then suddenly she showed up and it was like the last two years didn’t matter.”

“That’s the most words I think I’ve heard you say in a row ever big brother. But how did you expect him to know you liked him if you didn’t even know yourself?”

Admittedly Tyler had never considered it like that and the more he thought about it the more he realized that his annoying little sister may actually have a point about how he approached this situation.

“Go on,” he said quietly, his mind racing a million miles a minute.

“You and Jamie have been calling each other best friends for years now, but that’s all you’ve ever called him. You tell him you love him, but as bros. You want to hang out, as bros. You tell the media that you are best bros, so why on earth was he supposed to somehow know that you actually want to be more than bros if all along you’ve only ever said the one thing?”

“You know, for a squirt you are oddly perceptive,” Tyler said after a moment, thinking back on the fight from a few days ago between he and Jamie and realizing that he may have overreacted. “I can’t take it back now though; I’ve said what I said already. He’s almost as bad at dealing with situations as I am and that’s saying something.”

“So call him. Tell him you’re sorry and then tell him how you feel, you big idiot.”

“I…I can’t, Cass. It would ruin everything. Our friendship. The team dynamic. I can’t be responsible for ruining something else. I might be mad at him right now, but we’ll go to camp for World’s in August, things will be weird for a few weeks and then they will go back to normal. I’ve avoided dealing with it for this long. We’ve fought before, it will be fine.”

“So when are you planning on falling out of love with him then?” She asked perceptively.

“It’ll happen over time. Its better this way,” Tyler said so softly that Cassidy almost didn’t hear him. “Its better he doesn’t know. If I don’t think about it, it will go away. No point making us both suffer.”

***

The phone rang the day after his conversation with his sister and Tyler groggily reached over to the nightstand to unplug it, noting the handsome Benn’s face on the screen as he slid his thumb across the screen to answer it.

“Jordie,” Tyler said with a yawn, not bothering to cover his mouth and yawning directly down the receiver.

“Dude, were you asleep? It’s 11 here, doesn’t that make it 2 where you are?”

“It’s not like I have an abundance of things to do right now,” Tyler responded crankily, closing his eyes and covering his face with his arm as was customary.

“Fix my brother,” Jordie responded haughtily, choosing not to reply to Tyler and instead jumping directly into the reason he called. “Ever since he’s gotten back from Paris he’s been miserable and all I’ve been able to get out of him was that you were an asshole, which is weird considering he seems to think you shit rainbows 99 percent of the time.”

“He does not,” Tyler said quietly, the now-familiar pang in his chest punching him once more. “It’s not my problem to fix him, Jord. I don’t want anything to do with him right now. I...I can’t be second best all the time. I know I’m supposed to support him and shit and make sure he’s happy, but isn’t he supposed to do the same for me?”

“So man up and talk to him, tell him how you feel you idiot, just make sure you don’t tell me about it because there are some things about my little brother I would rather not know.”

“And what, just push Katie out the window? Or am I just supposed to forget about the very large and very real issue of his girlfriend in the way?”

A long silence stretched between them which gave Tyler the ability to maneuver himself so he was sitting up against his headboard, phone between his ear and shoulder as he waited for Jordie to continue talking, feeling like he was missing something important.

“Huh,” Jordie eventually said at the other end of the line, his voice significantly more contemplative than Tyler would have warranted for the situation.

“What the fuck does huh mean?” Tyler asked, again quite crankily as was his current mood of choice as of late.

“I actually have to call you back, Ty.” Jordie said after another short moment. “I’ve just realized something.”

“Care to enlighten me?”

“Not yet. We’ll talk later bro,”Jordie replied suddenly and with that he hung up, leaving Tyler with his increasingly confused thoughts and a raging headache that he imagined was not going to go away anytime soon.

***

A few days passed without a word from either of the two Benn’s and with nothing to keep Tyler occupied he instead chose to increase his off-ice workouts, hitting the gym as much as physically possible, napping when he could and spending time with his family or occasional friend during his few hours of downtime.

It was late Thursday afternoon when Tyler heard a commotion down the hall indicating that someone else was home, though by the sounds of it, it was likely his sisters and mom all coming home at once if the shuffling and rustling was any indication to go by.

Tyler considered getting up to go say hi, but he was comfortable in his position and he had lived with his sisters long enough to know what would come of his afternoon if he went out to ask how their shopping trip was as they’d likely subject him to a full fashion show with makeup tutorial that he never needed nor knew that he wanted, which he had told his sisters repeatedly over the years to no avail.

Distantly, Tyler heard a hushed conversation somewhere outside in the vicinity of his room which was why he wasn’t overly surprised when the door creaked open a few moments later. With his eyes covered, however, Tyler missed the look of surprise on the person’s face as they entered to find Tyler wearing nothing but his boxer briefs as he lay sprawled on the bed.

“This isn’t what I imagined when I thought of your childhood room,” the person said as they stood awkwardly by the door, stomach flipping at the look of shock that crossed  
Tyler’s face as he dropped his arm, rolling over to look at him with wide frightened eyes.

A long silence stretched between the pair as Tyler continued to stare in shock at the man standing at the foot of his bed, finally managing to get his limbs to start working as he pushed himself into a seated position leaning back against the headboard, licking his lips and trying to convince his throat to cooperate.

“You’re in my room,” Tyler stammered finally, cringing at how soft and weak his voice sounded.

“That’s very observant, yes,” the other person responded sarcastically, biting his tongue as he did so and reminding himself of why he had come.

“In Toronto. Where I live,” Tyler continued, still trying to process whether he was awake or dreaming.

“You seem surprised.”

“I told you I hated you.”

“Not in so many words,” Jamie said with a small laugh, awkwardly rubbing at the back of his head and slowly stepping further into the room when he was (somewhat) positive that Tyler wouldn’t jump up and run. “I don’t think you meant it though.”

“I’m not sure I didn’t,” Tyler replied honestly, seeming to surprise himself with the words if the expression on his face was anything to go by. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in Victoria with your family?”

“I told them I had something I needed to take care of; they understood.”

“So what, you flew across the country to tell me I was an asshole? You could have just called, saved yourself the trip.”

“You never answered when I called,” Jamie pointed out. “And I figured this needed to be done face-to-face.”

“Yeah, well, welcome to the majority of my summer, dude.”

Another silence fell between them in which time Tyler motioned for Jamie to sit on the end of his bed, tucking his knees up to his chest as Jamie sat down, trying to get comfortable in a rather uncomfortable situation.

“I…I feel like there are some things I should probably tell you,” Jamie finally managed to start, still looking uncomfortable as he so often did, his face a mix of media training and honest emotion.

“That’d probably be helpful,” Tyler retorted defensively, holding his legs tighter.

Ignoring the slight, Jamie looked away from Tyler’s face, scanning the room and eyes landing on the photos behind Tyler’s bed, noting how many of them he was in, particularly the one on the far left, possibly the biggest photo, which the two had taken at training camp the previous season.

“I got a little swept up with things with Katie,” Jamie supplied, staring resolutely at the photo instead of bringing himself to look back at Tyler’s face. “It’s been a long time since I’ve actually had a chance to be with someone or let myself have something I wanted and I let myself get pretty invested in that without really thinking about how it would impact those around me.”

“I didn’t think about how Katie being in my life would affect you because you’re Tyler and you are super confident and you can make friends with anyone and you flirt with anything that moves and you’ve never seemed to not be totally and completely happy with how your life was going. I don’t have that luxury since you know me better than practically anyone and you know how awkward I get and how hard it is for me to talk to new people.”

“Like an awkward little duckling in a pool,” Tyler said without meaning to, a small smile grabbing the corner of his lips as he imagined the mental image, dropping his head back onto his knee caps after a moment with his arms wrapped around his legs.

“Exactly, so when a hot girl who was funny and smart came into my life, I couldn’t say no, especially since she seemed genuinely interested in me too. But that doesn’t excuse the fact that I let you, my best friend, start to think that I didn’t care about him because I spent too much time with her. That’s not right and I can’t say sorry enough times, dude. It’s really not right and I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine man, you deserve to be happy,” Tyler responded without missing a beat. “I don’t have any right to complain, it was just me being selfish and stupid and hey, did I mention selfish?”

“You’re not selfish, Ty. You’re one of the biggest parts of my life and you deserve to feel like you matter and I didn’t do that and that’s on me. But from now on you aren’t going to need to worry about that because I’m back and I’m done being stupid.”

“Did you actually fly across the country to apologize for being a shitty best friend, because if so that’s really cute dude,” Tyler said with a laugh, his face transforming into a smile that Jamie matched, the stronghold in his chest releasing its grip just the slightest.

“No, but that’s part of it though.”

“So what? Did Jordie tell you that you were being stupid, because I could have told you that if you had asked,” Tyler said with a rue grin, laughing when Jamie swatted at him with his obscenely long reach.

“No you shit head, shut up for a second and I’ll tell you,” Jamie snorted, staring at Tyler intensely until he finally stopped giggling and held his hands up in a mock surrender gesture and finally settled back into his original position.

“Katie left me when we were in Paris,” Jamie said after another moment, reveling in the gasp that escaped Tyler’s lips as he looked on in surprise. “We started fighting after the wedding we went to about a month ago. One of her aunts was talking about marriage and she seemed really excited, but when I told her I wasn’t ready to get married yet she got a bit upset and it led to me saying something stupid about not wanting to settle down yet which led to a pretty big fight. It sucked man, we were traveling together too so there wasn’t a lot we could do.”

“We got back to Victoria and things were pretty stilted between us, so I went and apologized and we talked and I suggested maybe we go on a trip somewhere where we could talk about things and get away from people we knew who would ask dumb questions.”

“Paris,” Tyler said quietly, not adding anything else so Jamie continued.

“I thought it would be romantic.”

“Evidently not,” Tyler asked, the question mark at the end implied despite the monotone expression of his voice.

“Yeah, well, she left me maybe a week in, flew back to California in the middle of the night.”

“She just abandoned you there?” Tyler asked angrily, his tone coloured red. 

“It was my own fault.”

“How was it your fault? Because you didn’t want to get married yet? That’s ridiculous!”

“No, for thinking I’d take her there in the first place. Did you know I had been thinking about breaking up with her back in February? Ended up deciding to stick it out because I thought it made the most sense. I was wrong.”

“You wanted to do something romantic for your girlfriend, there’s no harm in that,” Tyler said cautiously, sensing there was more to the story than Jamie was letting on.

“Maybe. Do you want to know why she left me though?”

“Um, sure?” Tyler responded hesitantly, gripping his legs tighter and refusing to break eye contact with the older man.

“She left me because apparently I never shut up about you.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Tyler shouted dropping his legs and leaning forward on the bed without realizing, Jamie’s face unreadable as he watched Tyler try to process the new information.

“Why do you think she introduced you to Ali? Apparently she thought that you and I were in love with each other so she thought maybe getting you interested in someone else would help in getting you to go away. I never even thought twice about it when she suggested you guys meet the first time, I can’t believe I didn’t realize what she was doing.”

“Holy shit, fuck dude,” Tyler exploded suddenly, jumping up from the bed and pacing around his room, hands going up to his hair and pulling on the ends tightly. “Fuck, I fucking ruin everything, of course she left you because of me, of course it’s my fucking fault.”

“Tyler, TYLER!” Jami shouted to get Tyler out of his reverie, his mouth still spewing profanities around the newest revelation. “Tyler it’s not your fault.”

“She LEFT you because of me, Jamie,” Tyler said as he gestured around the room. “She fucking left you because I’m a giant fucking idiot who can’t contain his feelings and wears his heart on his sleeve all the time and now you and your girlfriend broke up and you flew across the entire fucking country to turn me down gently and fuck, I fucked up man, I’m so fucking sorry, dude, fuck!”

Jamie laughed humorlessly to himself, looking down at his hands in his lap and hating himself for how worked up Tyler was getting, knowing that if he had said the words he had wanted to say all those months ago at the beginning of the season Tyler wouldn’t be sitting here in anguish right at this exact moment.

“I never said she was wrong,” Jamie said quietly and that was enough to have Tyler stopping dead in his tracks in the center of the room, looking at Jamie with a mix of surprise and fear and something else that looked an awfully lot like hope.

“Was she wrong?” Tyler asked after a moment, his hands crossed over his chest as if to protect himself from Jamie’s next words.

“No. Not from my end anyways.”

“What are you trying to say?” Tyler asked carefully, his knuckles going white from how hard he was gripping his arms.

“Ty, when I got back from Paris, the first thing I wanted to do was to talk to you. So I sent you a message and then I sent you two and then I tried calling and then I texted again and again on the off chance that you might still be awake enough to answer my call. And then you didn’t respond for days and I was going crazy trying to figure out why you wouldn’t talk to me when I had finally figured out what was going on in my head when I spent those last few days in Paris alone just wandering the streets and trying to think.”

“It got so bad that Jordie tackled me and pinned me down to take my phone away, telling me I was being an idiot and I just needed to tell you how I felt. I told him I didn’t know what he meant and he told me to use my own two eyes and realize that how I felt about you was how I was supposed to feel about Katie and that probably said a lot about things. I knew he was right so when I saw you had responded I was so excited to tell you what I had realized and the-“

“And then I called you an asshole and told you to fuck off.”

“Yeah dude, kind of crushed me,” Jamie replied honestly.

“And Jordie? He knew?”

“Not exactly.”

“Meaning?”

“He didn’t know what I had been sending you, he assumed I had texted you to tell you how I felt, so he kept telling me that you’d come around and respond when you were ready and that it was probably a lot to take in right away. I guess when he called you, you mentioned something about me having a girlfriend and man, did I ever get a lecture about that afterwards and what you are apparently supposed to say during your grand revelations.”

“You got a lecture about having a girlfriend?”

“About not telling you that I didn’t.”

“Ah,” Tyler replied awkwardly, dropping his arms and looking back at the wall of photos above his headboard.

“You must have been pretty pissed at me.”

“Yeah man, yeah I was.”

“Because I had a girlfriend?”

“Because you didn’t have time for me anymore.”

Jamie stood up then, approaching Tyler who watched him warily, reaching out and pulling Tyler’s arms from around his chest and gripping one in each of his own large hands.  
“I can’t promise that I’m not going to screw up again, Ty. But I can promise that you are never going to feel like you don’t matter to me ever again. When I was in Paris, I realized that Katie was right and the only person I wanted to be standing at the Eiffel Tower with was you.”

“So what, you love me or some shit?” Tyler said cooly, though Jamie could tell he was deflecting in order to protect himself in case Jamie said he didn’t.

“I’ve loved you for a long time, Tyler. But maybe we could start with liking and see where things go.”

“Like bros before blows?” Tyler said with a quirk of his lip, the light in his eyes reigniting.

“Nah, more like boyfriends before bros and then we can see after that,” Jamie replied with his own quirk of his lip and when Tyler’s face broke out into a massive blinding grin, well, let’s just say, the lecture the next day about the noise was completely and totally worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> Whoops? But yay, happy endings! Like i said, I didn't plan on writing this story in the slightest, but I figured once my fingers took over I should let them do their own thing.
> 
> I am willing to take requests. Come say hi to me at hobrerek.tumblr.com, I promise I don't bite! Let me know what you think and what else you want to see! Much love x


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